From the Abolition of Work - Book Report/Review Example

A critique of "The Abolition of Work" Introduction The text I read was an essay “The Abolition of Work” by Bob Black. The essay criticises people’s perception about work as inevitable. The author argues that most people are slaves of work and require liberation or rather work should be eradicated. He posits that whether masked as employment, job or occupation, all are the same since they depict compulsory, productive and exploitative activity imposed on people by either political or economic ways.

According to him, subordination in workplace is a sheer display of charade, only meant to rob workers of their freedom. He therefore proposes abolition of work and its replacement with play, which tolerates irregularity and flexibility offering time for other meaningful activities. The author also criticises the views of leftist such as Marxism and anarchism as those of a slave master struggling to retain the slave by ensuring it remains ignorant. This paper is a critique of Bob Black’s essay “The Abolition of Work”.

The author’s main viewpoints are that most work done is of no importance and the reasons for doing it are impractical. It should thus be replaced with play, which will be a novel genre of work but more pleasurable, productive, and people will be enthusiastic to volunteer doing it. Another point the author articulates is that work is not necessary since all it does is to make people detainees of their bosses who take pleasure in domineering all facets of their lives. The author posits that people do not labour because they approve of work but because they consider work inevitable, which according to him is a misconception (Black Web 1).

The writer’s style that puts me off is the sadistic and pessimistic manner he displays work. I find it so ambiguous for the author to criticise all aspect of work. His portray of work is fraudulent since as much as not everybody enjoys working there is a percentage of people who like and enjoy working. His usage of the word work to depict slavery is not realistic. I dislike the imagery depiction of all workers as slaves and discontented. All he does is criticise every aspect of work. To me it is not viable to consider everything about work as idealistic (Black Web 1).

The author however interests me by the insightful way he has formulated ways in which work can be made more enjoyable. He in a meticulous and revolutionary manner reveals how some people turn into slaves as they work much but the returns are negligible (Black Web 1).Given a chance, I would advise the author to ease on generalisation. Another issue i would raise is the biased manner in which the author has dealt with issues pertaining to work. Work may not be pleasurable to many but that does not make it a vice.

In my opinion, the text can have different impacts on the audience depending on their view on work. For those who enjoy work, negative criticism is expected as the essay shows spitefulness towards work. For employers, the essay is a total abhorrence as it attempts to incite employers against tyrant employers. For people who dislike work due to its constancy and intransigence, the work would be entertained as it advocates for adjustment of work to make it less rigid.Something about Blacks essay that interests me is his intrepid criticism of works by pro-workers.

He openly ridicules works and perspectives of pro-workers and supports those by anti-workers. He depicts pro-works as utopian economists. His simple but ingenuousness elucidation of work as a yoke used to incarcerate people is quite appealing. Bob Black is clearly brilliant author endowed with ideas (Black Web 1).Works CitedBlack, Bob. The Abolition of Work. The Anarchist library, 2009. Web. < http://theanarchistlibrary.org/HTML/Bob_Black__The_Abolition_of_Work.html>